The recent ARRL Field Day provided many amateurs with their first satellite contacts.
Both experienced satellite operators and newcomers alike populated all of the North
American satellite passes during the League event held last weekend.

Kevin, AC5DK reported RS-12 was very busy with activity. Greg, N0ZHE endured hot and
windy conditions at his Field Day site in Kansas while working stations on several
satellites, including AO-10.

"AO-10 was great," reported Andy, W5ACM. "The satellite worked amazingly
well. FO-20 and FO-29 provided many contacts and AO-27 was very entertaining." John,
N2HMM agreed, adding, "Field Day was great this year, I was especially surprised in
RS-15, its downlink was much stronger than usual."

Bidding "aloha" during FD '98 was Ted, NH6YK, operating as AH6PB on the north
shore of Oahu, about 100 meters from the ocean. Bruce, N3LSY reports he managed to
make a number of contacts on AO-10 despite misgivings about the condition and distance of
the satellite. He reports being "very surprised" about how well the satellite
worked during the event.

ANS reminds stations to send any AMSAT Field Day results, photos, and a short write-up
to Andy, W5ACM, using his e-mail address:

The AMSAT-UK 13th Annual Colloquium at the University of Surrey will soon be underway.
Richard Limebear, G3RWL tells ANS the program has now been formalized for the
July 31st to August 2nd event.

Scheduled highlights for the first day include the official opening remarks by Martin
Sweeting, G3YJO, Professor of Satellite Engineering and Chairman of AMSAT-UK. AMSAT-NA's
President, Bill Tynan, W3XO will discuss 'What's Next in Amateur Radio Satellites',
followed by 'Future SAREX Plans' with Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, AMSAT-NA Vice President/Manned
Space Program. 'Satellites in Education, The Riverside Applied Learning Center Young
Astronauts Fair' will be presented by Keith Pugh, W5IU, AMSAT-NA VP/Operations.

G3RWL will get things underway on Saturday, August 1st with morning remarks, followed
with the opening address by Ian Kyle, GI8AYZ, RSGB President. The morning lecture is by US
astronaut Don Thomas, KC5FVF.

Phase 3D subjects will begin Session 2. Ron Broadbent, G3AAJ, Peter Guelzow,
DB2OS, Werner Hass, DJ5KQ, Freddy de Guchteneire, ON6UG and Matjaz Vidmar, S53MV will
discuss the current status of the satellite and the P3D project. This will be an important
session in lieu of the recent announcement of the P3D launch delay.

On Sunday, August 2nd, Ray Soifer W2RS, AMSAT-NA VP/International Affairs will
chair the 'IARU International Forum'. This will be followed by the 'International Space
Station Forum' presented by KA3HDO. Arizona State University will be represented by Assi
Friedman, KK7KX, who will present an overview of the ASUSat-1 amateur radio satellite.

This bulletin lists only a few of the many presentations and sessions that will be
held. For a complete listing of the AMSAT-UK 13th Annual Colloquium schedule, point your
web browser to:

Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, AMSAT-NA Vice President for Manned Space Programs told ANS that
the Russian Space Agency has formally announced they plan to retire the Mir space station
next June, six months earlier than expected. The decision is in recognition of the
government's financial woes, according to Russian space officials.

The decision to bring forward Mir's demise from December 1999 was made at a
meeting between Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, Space Agency Director Yuri Koptev and
Yury Semyonov, head of the Energiya Rocket Corporation, which owns Mir.

Boris Ostroumov, the Russian Space Agency's deputy director said safety was also a
factor in the early end to Mir. "The station's guarantee was for three years and it
has flown more than 12 years with many repairs and breakdowns -- and something worse than
a breakdown could happen -- so we must think of safety above all,'' he said.

Russian officials said a French and Slovak would be among the last cosmonauts currently
scheduled to visit Mir on short missions.

[ANS thanks Frank Bauer, KA3HDO, AMSAT VP for Manned Space Programs and the Reuters
News Service for this information]

It's time again to mark your calendar for the upcoming 17th Annual ARRL and TAPR
Digital Communications Conference, to be held September 25 to 27, 1998 at the Holiday
Inn Rolling Meadows, Chicago, Illinois. The location is just minutes from O'Hare Airport.
This is the third year in which the ARRL Digital Communications Conference and TAPR Annual
General Meeting are being joined into one event.

The Conference is an international forum for radio amateurs in digital communications,
networking and related technologies, to meet, publish their work and present new ideas and
techniques for discussion.

Scheduled seminars will explore the digital world including the RUDAK digital
communications system scheduled to fly on Phase 3D. Lyle Johnson, WA7GXD will discuss
RUDAK features, systems design, integration, and planned experiments. The goal of the
presentation is to zero in on the communications capabilities of RUDAK, the performance to
be expected from the PSK system and the limitations and capacities of the DSP modems. Lyle
will also explain user requirements for receiving and transmitting to RUDAK and how
amateurs can prepare to make ground operations a reality once the satellite is in
operation. Information on how to submit a proposal for experimental time on RUDAK will
also be presented.

Anyone interested in digital communications is invited to submit a paper for
publication in the Conference Proceedings. Presentation at the conference is not required
for publication. The primary purpose of the conference is to communicate ideas and
techniques regarding digital communications. Papers written in an informal style are
welcome, as well as those written to academic standards. Papers are due by August 15,
1998, and should be submitted to:

The 1998 ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference will be co-hosted by the
Chicago Amateur Packet Radio Association and by the Packet Radio User Group of Japan. Full
information on the conference, registration, paper submission guidelines and hotel
information can be obtained by pointing your browser to:

The Amateur Service has a secondary allocation at 5.650 to 5.925 GHz with
government radar systems and non-government fixed satellite service uplinks. Under the
proposal, dedicated short-range communications highway safety systems would share the band
as co-primary users.

ITS America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting ITS, has been working with
the ARRL and others to develop a sharing plan. The League has said it is prepared to work
with ITS entities to resolve spectrum-sharing issues. The FCC said interference problems
that might crop up could be resolved by changing the frequency of the amateur operation,
by power reduction, or by using directional antennas.

The FCC is seeking comments on the need for nationwide operational standards and
channelization, and on the potential for operations to share with other services. Comments
on ET Docket 98-95 is due 75 days after publication in the Federal Register. The
complete NPRM is available on the FCC Web site at the following URL:

The Phase 3D Integration Lab web site featured four great photos this past week. Minding
the Store, Arc Jet Gas Heater, 10 Gig Transmitter and Bottoms Up were the pictures
posted during the week of June 29th. To view the site and see the photographs of P3D,
point your browser to http://www.magicnet.net/~phase3d/--NN0DJ

AMSAT-SM is looking into building its very own satellite. In the April issue of AMSAT-SM
Info, several preliminary design features were discussed. The satellite must be easy to
use, of Microsat design, two analog NBFM channels, a parrot with 10 seconds of memory and
a SSTV downlink with high-resolution camera. This is preliminary design data and may
change as the project progresses. AMSAT-SM has a web site at http://www.users.wineasy.se/amsat (in Swedish
only -- an English version is under construction).--Houston AMSAT Net, SM0OFV, KK5DO

MIREX has announced an on-going APRS School Days Test. MIREX is allowing schools to use
APRS for position and status reports via R0MIR. Non-school stations are asked to refrain
from using APRS type transmissions or beacons via R0MIR. MIREX reports this test is to
encourage school participation in learning more about space and Amateur Radio. The test
will continue through the last days of operation before Mir re-enters the earth's
atmosphere some time in 1999.
--WA6LIE

Due to recent changes in the use of the Mir PMS, WB4APR has modified his Mir 'LIVE' web
page to capture the PMS messages and MAIL. So now stations can see who has traffic on Mir.
The last 8 Mir pass files (as monitored in Maryland) are always available on http://web.usna.navy.mil/~bruninga/mirex.html.--WB4APR

Delivery of the first element of the ISS Amateur Radio Station is expected about
6 months from now. This element is scheduled to include contributions from Germany,
Russia and the US. First crew operations are about one year away. The SAREX reflector will
have more details shortly; including information from the ARISS meeting in Surrey, England
planned for the end of this month.--KA3HDO

European and American tracking sites have lost touch with a $1 billion satellite
that had provided significant new details about the sun. The Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory satellite dropped off the airwaves recently when its control jets were fired,
and officials have had no contact with it since.--Morrock News Service

A NASA technology developed to help astronomers probe the depths of the universe is at
work today helping municipalities and private businesses track the movements of vehicles
in large fleet operations. Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville,
AL, first developed the technology -- a software program -- to handle the flow of enormous
amounts of information. The system is now being used to monitor many types of vehicle
fleet operations including delivery vans, armored cars and taxis.--NASA

The current crew onboard Mir are Talgat Musabayev and Nikolai Budarin. They speak and
read Russian only. Any messages addressed as personal to R0MIR will not be understood
unless it is in Russian. MIREX is again allowing R0MIR-1 for store and forward message
traffic.

The PBBS is running a Kantronics KPC-9612 + V.8.1 TNC. The commands are similar to most
PBBS and BBS systems.

[ANS thanks Scott Avery, WA6LIE, and the MIREX team for Mir status information]

This means AO-27's transmitter turns on 18 minutes after entering the Sun and
stays on for 18 minutes. AO-27's transmitter is turned off at all other times during
the orbit. N4USI reminds stations that this happens on every orbit, approximately
14.2 times a day. The current TEPR settings will cause the satellite to be on during
the daytime at northern latitudes.

The FO-29 command station is now asking for reports from radio amateurs who can confirm
the value of channel 2A, the 5th item transmitted in CW after 'HI HI'. The normal value of
channel 2A is '00'. Reports will be appreciated (in e-mail) addressed to:

In response to many requests for information about methods of decoding OSCAR-11
signals, a package of hardware information has been added to the satellite web site. The
site also contains some software for capturing data, decoding ASCII telemetry and WOD
information. The URL is http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/

The AO-16 command team has authorized an APRS experiment on AO-16 to explore the use of
the 1200-baud PACSAT for APRS position/status reporting. The test periods will run each
Tuesday from 0000 to 2359 UTC.